Videoplaza pockets $12M for monetizing online video

The online ad server helped display 500% more ads last year to International viewers

With a strong demand for online video, many are looking for more ways to monetize the mobile consumption. One London-based company, Videoplaza, focused on selling ad management platforms for video, has secured a Series B Wednesday. The $12 million was led by Qualcomm Ventures and Innovacom. The company previously received funding from Creandum and Northzone, which also participated in funding the company. This brings VideoPlaza's total funding to $18 million.

Qualcomm already has a deep investment in the chipsets for video, so this investment in online video seems to nurture that focus for the company.

Videoplaza plans to apply the new funds towards expansion as well as research and development. While the TV industry is estimated as a $162 billion industry, and online consumption is a mere fraction of that, many are seeing the tides turn in the direction of online video. As more people cut the cable, many more opportunities to host and advertise online video are popping up.

Videoplaza has grown its international client base and delivered five times more ads in the last year across 17 markets, just as it opened new branches in Berlin, Madrid and Singapore.

The company’s platform utilizes Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, iOS devices, Android, Sony Playstation, Samsung Smart TVs, and closed IPTV environments. By 2013 the company expects more than half of its traffic to come from mobile phone and tablet devices – up substantially from the Q4 of 2011 where 8% of the company’s traffic was generated from non-PC devices.

“We believe in picking sides and are 100% committed to the sell side, empowering broadcasters and publishers to effectively monetize their video inventory across any device or service," said Sorosh Tavakoli, CEO of Videoplaza, in a statement. "This investment allows us to further strengthen our commitment as we increase our R&D efforts and footprint to make sure our clients can build a sustainable business in a fast changing and ever more fragmented world.”

Videoplaza does point out, though, that there are many challenges in it market due to device fragmentation the difficulty in developing monetization policies across multiple platforms.

“With the number of connected devices booming, the New IP-delivered TV is clearly one of the most disruptive markets right now”, Bruno Dizengremel, Partner, Innovacom said in a Videoplaza blog post.

VideoPlaza exists in the same online video advertising space as LiveRail, BlackArrow and DoubleClick.

By 2020, Videoplaza estimates that there will be nearly 10 billion connected mobile devices and media owners making revenue on online video content.

Even months back in July, reports were coming in that a full 71% of American Internet users use video-sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, representing an increase of five percentage points over last year, when 66% of users visited such sites.

Interestingly, despite limited broadband reach, 68% of rural Internet users visit these sites, compared to 71% of suburban users and 72% of urban users. The report’s author, Kathleen Moore, notes that the difference between the usage rates of rural, suburban, and urban users is not statistically significant, and it demonstrates that since 2009, rural residents have caught up with urban and suburban residence in online video viewing habits.